Twelve years back, the land collapsed, the sea rose. Ten years later, the asteroids rained down, the other planets gone.
Then, the Subzero started.
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A year after the Late Asteroid Bombardment, a winter came that seemed t...
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I doubt if hell is really on fire. The place where I am is on ice, and it's hell.
It's Monday, 32nd of October—my birthday. I am now seventeen years old, but living in this world, it makes me feel like I'm older than the first dryopithecus, older than the first Tyrannosaurus Rex, older than the first bacteria. The lack of distraction by technology seems to slow down the time, so slow, my life a thousand years delay, stretching a year into a millennium.
Comparing then and now: Then Nooowwwwwwwww
If I was still living in a perfectly normal world, I would be laughing with Sandy now at school, maybe partying all night. But I'm not, so maybe Sandy is laughing at me now from heaven, together with more Sandies, sipping on champagne and sunbathing until their skin's tan. They probably don't care that it's Halley Jacquard's birthday. They are happy now at heaven while here I am, looking like a human marshmallow or a snow woman or both.
I don't know anymore who to consider lucky. Me, who's still here to celebrate my birthday, or Sandy who left before things got really messy.
Years back, I see myself in a cool, clinical office, requesting a patient to enter. I didn't see myself searching snowflakes outside her snow-covered house, sporting fluffy white earmuffs, surrounded by omnipresent cold and grayness.
I just want a very normal life, thank you so much.
I sigh and lazily scoop my abnormally long hair from the snow ground. My hair, which is three times my height, and grows two times faster than the normal. A thing I both hate and love. That and Crimson.
Okay, don't go there, Halley.
Braiding keeps me sane. That's why I didn't cut it for two years. It keeps me occupied, distracted. That and collecting snowflakes. I guess it's better than staying in the house, staring and daydreaming until my heart feels heavier than lead. It's something that's keeping me mentally intact from months of insanity-inducing boredom.
I slump against the snow ground. I stare at the sky, a blur of nothing but gray, and lying there in the snow, I have the urge to flap my arms and legs and do a snow angel. Doing so makes me feel human again, normal. Screw me, but sometimes I doubt if I'm still human after months of solitude. I even doubt my sanity.
Am I still sane?
Go, judge.
I walk back inside the place you can barely call a house but I refer to it that way anyway. It is of four walls, a dome ceiling, a floor, all made of ice. This floor used to be the attic, but with the snow that poured all year, it's the only place in the house that isn't covered, though I'm pretty sure it will soon.
I've been planning to leave the house—I can't. That means I'm going to be a Wanderer--
--aren't I yet?
It's obvious that I can't live in here forever. My resources are almost gone. But I have nowhere to go. All the people I know are surely in heaven now, but going there isn't an option.
For short, I'm screwed.
I sigh and sit on the floor. I open the box of ice biscuits. Four pieces left. I take one.
What a happy birthday.
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AUTHORS NOTE
Picture at the top. Her hair is three times longer than that. Might hard to picture, but that's her. Thank you for reading! Comment and votes are highly appreciated.
